After being sentenced to fifty-one months in jail for two counts of felony possession charges stemming from an arrest in January 2001, Project Pat also known as Robert Houston has filed his first appeal for release from prison. Project Pat and his lawyer are hoping to receive a new trial from this appeal since they feel Judge Robert H. Cleland (trial judge) was biased due to the fact he could have been influenced to sentence Pat because of a book of lyrics from his 2000 album “Murder and Robbers”
In the appeal it also states that the judge unfairly tried to dismiss claims to the jury from two witnesses who testified that the guns did not belong to Pat, but one of them. Project Pat’s attorney John E. Herbison claims that the judge instructed jurors to disregard the knowledge of whether the vehicle search was legal at the time of his arrest. “The sentence was enhanced because of the lyrics. I have some concerns as to whether that violates the first amendment”, John Herbison said in a statement to the Associated Press.
